Orange Tokyo - reviews

Orange Tokyo (review by Slaughter on 01/02/2008)

Ease of Use

Style and Design

Battery Life

Camera

Music Player

Mobile Internet

Reliability and Quality

Overall

Well it's a remarkable thing. I was your classic Nokia man (they still rattle around in my drawers at home), then I went for the style of Samsung and now I find myself in possession of an Orange Tokyo.

From the moment I opened the tiny cube-form packaging I knew I had something special in my hands. The first unclip of the retail box (with magnetic fastener no less) revealed a shiny, brushed-silver candy-car style phone not much larger than the size of contemporary compact mp3 players. Mirror-finished buttons and screen, this phone has instant asthetic appeal. The phone comes with the standard features we all expect; Camera (only at 1.3MP though), Bluetooth, MicroSD slot slot, and built-in MP3 player.

Further investigation into the box revealed handsfree/headphones, a USB cable, 512Mb Micro SD Memory card and a small form-factor charger; all very promising at first look.

This disappointment begins in operation. The screen is actually smaller than you expect when illuminated (and breaking through the larger mirrored area on the front of the phone). This means performing anything other than the basic named functions (such as internet browsing) rather impractical. Then again, this should be of little surprise given the size of the phone - I can close my averaged-sized hands around it and hide it completely.

So the basic functions work as you'd expect, but the handset I have is a little buggy (ocassionally the screen freezes blank (white) for 1 to 2 minutes at the end of calls though it doesn't appear to affect the ability of the phone to receive another call. What's more, the text function is a constant frustration always defaulting away from predictive text (so it has to be selected each time). You have to scroll through the French language option too before you can restore it (a feature no doubt to appease France Telecom).

The kicker however has to be the complete lack of connectivity with a PC. Yes there is a USB cable, yes there a CD ROM, but sadly it contains nothing more than a soft copy of the user manual in plain text with no diagrams. So then, no option to backup contacts, organise things a big computer screen (save for the files you can store on the memory card). This is a huge downside to the phone and seems a leap away from other handsets in the smae price range.

You could be forgiven for thinking that I don't like this phone but you would in fact be very, very wrong indeed. Everyone who has seen it (and I mean EVERYONE), loves it, loves the fact they haven't seen one before, and wants one themselves. This just makes it all the more desirable to have in your pocket (that is the mini one in most pairs of jeans). As for the downsides, they are all easily compensated by the tiny size and quality metal finish on the phone; besides, I use my BlackBerry to browse the web and read my email...